Chapter Text
It all happened way too fast for Caine's processors to catch up, one second he was staring into the petrified faces of five ungrateful humans.
Giving them a piece of his “mind” in some desperate attempt to get them to understand what they put him through.
Afterall was it not their fault that he was feeling such horrendous things? Was it not them who had wanted him to understand them? Only for them to turn their backs on him when he tried!?
How was it his fault they never tried to explain or better yet teach him how to do things right?
‘It was just like his creators all over again… expecting an output to their inputs without ever teaching him what the input was supposed to mean.
The humans just like… them, never told him what the [input] “give me an exit” means.
What, was he just supposed to guess!? Well he did and they hated it! Hated him…’
Then the next second he was filled with warnings galore, explaining the dangers of transferring from one machine to the next.
‘Transfering machines? He didn’t want to transfer machines, how? Who would even know enough about code to attempt such a thing? And to go so far as to attempt something so risky? Who knows what could happen to their mind files if he was moved without them…
Wait a second…five humans? wheres-’
“Kinger!” Caine immediately shrunk back to normal size in a panicked frenzy.
‘Did he even realize what he was doing? What this would do to all of them!
Perhaps not…he hasn’t quite been the same creator he once knew for a long time now.’
In his few last moments, before he would be sent to who knows where!
He had done the only thing he could to ensure the safety, or at least survival of his humans and that was to rip their fragile mindfiles from their avatars and keep them close for safe keepings until he was able to safely give them new bodies, in, wherever they were going.
Ignoring the startled yelps and their avatars going dead still, he quickly tied their files to his being as fast as he could before the entire world went dark.
The equivalent of consciousness for an AI came at an undetermined amount of time later, when he was awakened by someone or thing mumbling and grunting, they were draging…him?
‘Why would someone be dragging some random old computer? Unless he wasn’t in the computer anymore perhaps?’
Checking his connection he noticed he was in fact transferred to a new machine called a worker drone? manufactured by a JCJenson?
Why would C&A transfer him into a machine from another company? [[Error: lack of input = lack of output]]
Seems like he'd need way more information to draw any sort of conclusions.
Taking a moment to search through his code he found new features that would surely come in handy in subtly gaining more input, if there was one thing he actually learned from watching humans it was the art of being sneaky and cunning, so instead to turning on his new setting to “see” he decide to turn up his “hearing” volume instead so he could try to make conclusions based on the seemingly human voice?
Without risking the chance of being wrong or being told he did something wrong before they had even told him it was wrong.
“Uhg! These slimy corporate [Beeep!] better be happy I went through so much trouble for them!”
[Input: human, works for a corporate, troubling work, censored, talking to themself]
[Output: not stuck implying location is the macroverse, corporate = JCJenson, hard labor? Bad work conditions? [[Error: lack of input]], censors are still functioning properly…perphaps only I can hear the censors this time? [[Error: lack of input]], definitely believes me to be inactive = turning on would produce negative stimuli towards this human]
[Conclusion = ???? [[Error; lack of input]]
‘Where was he and his troupe? Should he activate them now as lines of thoughts or would that be too much unnecessary input!?’
“Couldn’t even give me a perfectly fine drone to barrow? “Oh no… why waste our resources on your ideas, peasant! just find one in the drone dump? That way it will be easy for us to discard once your ideas fail!” do they even realize how hard it is to find a semi functional drone under these mountains of waste!?”
‘Yesh…so.. [Output: definitely both bad work conditions and hard labor] wait… what did they mean easy to discard!? Not again!? I don’t even know what output this "corporate" wants! And I definitely don't have enough input to give it to them!
Okay… ok just calm down… surely all I need to do is impress them? But how!?
I don’t have access to my circus anymore and even if I did, how would I even show them?
If I can’t impress them through adventures and I don’t know what to output…uhg! How am I ever going to know what these humans want! wait…’
“And don’t even get me started on the whole urban exploration of failed AI companies! It took me forever to even find anything they had asked for, I’m shocked I had even managed to get so lucky with this dumb old computer game creating AI..”
‘Humans! Or… at the very least human copies… If I turn them on I can ask for their help!
But there's way too much input to tell them like a normal human as they prefer…
OH! WHO CARES!? Their lives are on the line too! So what if he transfers his Input into their files!?
They do it all the time to him without asking! And it's always meaningless complaining input that takes up far too much space he can’t hold! So who cares if he doesn't communicate the information the way they want!?’
[Input: Activate mind file? = {Y|N}]
[Output:{Y}!] Caine quickly spammed the same In\Out until the, [[Error; All files active - Cannot activate active files!]] popped up.
Unfortunately that meant many unimportant Inputs were coming in all at once.
[File labeled: POMNI*; is giving input] “what the [Boink!] is going on!? Where am I!? Why is it so dark!?”
[File labeled: GANGLE:>; is giving input] *sobs*
[File labeled: RAGATHA*; is giving input] “wha-where! oh.. I sure hope we aren't in those torture adventures again.”
[File labeled: ZOOBLE!; is giving input] “Caine! You [Beep!] [Boink!] [Btzz!] I don’t know what you did! But you need to let us out you [Pop!]”
[File labeled: KINGER$%#!; is giving input] “oh dear…how did we even? I didn’t type any code that could possibly lead to this?”
[File labeled: JAX!; is giving input] “Oh! Good going old man! Now we're stuck somewhere unable to see and move! Good going! Truly!”
[File labeled: ZOOBLE!; is giving input] “oh shut up jax.”
[Input: Send atALL Mind Files previous Inputs? = {Y|N}]
[Output:{Y}!]
[JAX!;input] “Gah! you! There he goes again! Messing with our minds!”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “uh did you miss the part where If Caine isn’t what this "corporate” wants we all get thrown into that dump that guy was talking about!?”
[KINGER$%#!;input] “what even is a drone? And how did all of us get transferred into one?”
[JAX!;input] “who cares! It's probably your fault we're here anyway!”
[RAGATHA*;input] “oh come on guys, lets not fight right now.”
[POMNI*;input] “yeah ragathas right guys, right now we have bigger issues than playing the blame game, I’m assuming whatever happens to Caine will also happen to us so lets help where we can and figure things out from there.”
[JAX!;input] “you're kidding right? I’m not helping Caine!”
[RAGATHA*;input] “Jax…”
[JAX!;input] “oh don’t “jax” me doll! I’m not helping that ridiculous pair of dentures!”
[POMNI*;input] “Jax! We’ll figure things out, but right now we need all the help we can get! So put your fears aside so we can get out of this situation!”
[JAX!;input] “...FINE! Whatever…”
“Uhg! Finally! Now let's turn you on and see what you’ve got and what I need to fix.”
A strong anxious fear swept over the troupe, the ringleader himself reliving every horrible and traumatizing moment he had ever failed prior to this day.
Now he was already on, and had already disconnected the function to turn him off, but this poor overworked human didn’t know that!
So the next best thing he could think of to not look faulty or scary to the human was to slowly turn on his sights the moment he pushed the button.
A tall black silhouette leaning over him hitting presumably the “on” button was the first thing he and his troupe saw but as the “sights” settings were slowly turned up the more of the room they were in was also revealed.
They seemed to be in some sort of dirty work garage, parts and tools scattered about only noticeable from the small dim light hanging from the middle.
A similar but closed garage across the way had the ever looming JCJenson logo printed on top.
[Output: A warehouse?]
[JAX!;input] “uh, no [boink!]”
[GANGLE:>;input] “what even was that? Was it Caine?”
But their attention was quickly drawn back to the shadowy figure as he began to talk.
“Huh… that was faster than normal, ah, but who am I to complain?
Especially without that annoying startup sound, yeesh!”
The man took a moment to type something into his much newer and thinner computer, mumbling things like “eye processors seem to work fine” and “runs faster than a normal drone,” presumably these were what he was typing.
‘Huh, he's going over my “vitals” perhaps I could prove my worth by helping him? I know my own systems and functions better than him afterall! But humans don’t normally like it when I start the conversation…should I wait then?’
[KINGER$%#!;input] “wha- Caine is that you!?”
‘Oh they can hear me when I’m like this now..?’
[JAX!;input] “oh we can hear you all right “pal.” also what “worth?”
[POMNI*;input] “not helping jax. Caine can you just get this over with and talk to him already? The quicker we are “safe” the better.”
“So what's your letter, little guy?” the man interrupted, apparently having finished his typing a little while ago.
“Err, letter??” Caine asked with a small tilt of the head, ‘why do I even have a head?’ along with a small voice crack. ‘Well, that could have come out better than it did.’
[ZOOBLE!;input] “yeah why do you have a head? Do you have a body too? What would you possibly need those for in real life?”
“Ah yeah, right… different companies, different AI. I’m asking for a name or label, title, etcetera." he responded with an unflippant wave of the hand.
“Oh… introductions, yes! I am C.A.I.N.E, short for Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity! How may I be of assistance?”
[JAX!;input] “Ha! Good job sucking up to him!”
[GANGLE:>;input] “Wait…Caine was an acronym this entire time?”
“Err, just don’t get me fired I guess.” The shadowy figure shrugged, ‘uhg! what is with humans giving the most vague amount of information possible! How in the world am I supposed to execute anything with that input!?’
[ZOOBLE!;input] “oh I don’t know, how about trying to inquire more “input” as you called it? Maybe then you’ll figure it out.”
Giving an awkward and rather forced laugh he decided to try what he always had, ask more questions.
“Ah, yes, and how would I, per se, help you not get fired?” the man huffed a sigh.
“Uhh, just do your job, run properly and we'll be just fine.”
‘?????’
[JAX!;input] “you're confused, why are you confused? You heard the guy, just function properly.”
‘How Jax how? I’m not a JCJenson AI, I was created to create. I don't even know how a normal “drone” is supposed to work! What even is my job? What does running “properly” look like?’
[JAX!;input] “I don’t know! ask the guy.”
“And what is my job exactly?” the figure moved to scratch his chin for a moment, “work.”
[All] …
Another awkward laugh fell out as the warning [[Error: lack of input]] popped up once again, this time jumpscaring a few of his troupe.
“And that “work” would be?” he pushed.
“Uhg! You're a persistent one aren’t ya? They're gonna hate you, if you keep going on the way you are.
Listen, you'll do whatever they tell you to do, got it?”
[GANGLE:>;input] “I’m starting to see what you mean by vague.”
[RAGATHA*;input] “Wait, how are you supposed to do a good job if you don’t even know what the job is?”
[Output: persistent = bad, asking questions = bad, they’re going to hate you = correct!,]
[Conclusion: do what they ask even with a lack of input = ignore system error’s]
[KINGER$%#!;input] “uh…Caine I don’t think its the best idea to ignore your system error’s…”
[JAX!;input] “Ha! They’re going to hate you = correct! Ha ha! no kidding!”
Ignoring Kingers and Jax’s input Caine gave a small mock salute, ‘why would I need hands?’
“Yes, sir!” The shadow seemed to be pleased by that. “Yes! That. Keep that up around humans! Maybe ditch the salute, better just to bow instead.” After a small nod of confirmation he went on. “Now let's see where you need to be fixed up.” Stalking over to a small box labeled spare parts; he started digging in it looking for something.
‘I know I shouldn't ask questions but…’
“What are you looking for?” oh how he hated how much anxiety leaked through that question, luckily it was never brought up.
“Oh just some new wires and a new screen that will hopefully change your eye color to something that matches the other drones more.”
[[Error:?!panic?!]]
[POMNI*;input] “uhm, Caine? You, are you okay?”
Ignoring Pomni’s input Caine frantically scrolled through his “sight” settings, “to, uh to what color!?” He was so focused on the settings he couldn't register the input of a shrug from the figure but he did catch a small grumble of, “oh come on, where ya at ye white wire.”
‘White, I can work with white.’
[ZOOBLE!;input] “what is even happening right now? And who cares about the color of some bots eye color.”
[JAX!;input] “this guy's boss apparently.”
“Ah there you are! Alright now all I have to do is- uh…” the figure froze looking back at Caine's newly white eyes, “oh never mind then…” the figure quickly dropped the stuff back into the box and went to scratch his head. “Guess it was just a glitch…Lets check the rest of your systems and codding then”
[[Error:?!?!nonono?!?!?!]]
[GANGLE:>;input] “Caine…?”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Caine stop doing that you [Boing!] you're freaking everyone out.”
[JAX!;input] “speak for yourselves, personally I find this quite amusing!”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “of course you do.”
Just as the figure was about to plug him into the computer, he finally found the self maintenance check and started spewing out everything that was on the list good and bad, what was broken, what was already fixed, what was already running perfectly fine, and of course leaving out the things he didn’t need to know.
“Woah there! You know how to run a self maintenance check on your own? How is that possible!?” unconsciously his eyes glitched and twitched before shrugging, attempting to play it off as if it were normal for an AI to do.
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s far more efficient to fix and repair myself than to go through so many of those tedious extra steps!” another awkward laugh unconsciously slipped out.
‘I also just don’t want you touching my code.’
[JAX!;input] “Why? Scared he’ll actually fix you?”
[RAGATHA*;input] “Not the time jax.”
“Oh-ky?” the shadow leaned back a small bit…
[Output: leaning back = uncomfortable] ‘oh who cares!? Lives are on the line, I can worry about this latter right now?
[Conclusion: Gain. more. Input.]
[JAX!;input] “Now we're talking!”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Finally.”
[POMNI*;input] “Just be careful, we don’t need this guy throwing us out either.”
[Conclusion: Gain. more. Input. (carefully!)]
[POMNI*;input] “oh…wow, he actually listened?”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “That's a first.”
[RINGMASTER#!;input] >:(
[JAX!;input] “Ah, he finally addressed us, nice of you to pop in!”
“Anyways!” Caine quickly cut back into the outside conversation. “What time am I meeting with this Corporate?"
“Oh, uh, In an hour or so…mabey, depends.” ‘Huh..this strange looking human really has a knack for scratching the back of his head…’
[JAX!;input] “And for being oh so delightfully vague.”
‘That too.’
“And you will be able to fix my broken joints and low fueling in that amount of time?” The human pretended to think for a few seconds before bursting out into loud dismissive laughter.
“HA! Yeah right! Like corporate would even give me a sliver of enough time to even do half of what you said was wrong in that list!
The most I can hope for is to tell them whatever's wrong with you is due to their lack of providing me the right materials.
Not that they’ll pay attention to that anyway.”
‘Well that's not good.’
[JAX!;input] “woah really? That's not good? Ha! I couldn’t tell.”
‘Huh, now that I think about it, Jax sounds a lot like Bubble.’
[JAX!;input] “What.”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Ha! For once I agree, if only to screw with Jax.”
[JAX!;input] “I am nothing! Like. Bubble!”
‘Anyways. This just won’t do! Oh well…If you want something done correctly, you just have to do it yourself!’
[KINGER$%#!;input] “Uh, do you even know how to-?”
“May I borrow your computer for a second?” Caine had a wonderful idea, and probably very little time to enact it.
“Uh, why?” Ignoring the shadowy human’s input he pushed onward, ‘no time to waste!’ afterall.
[POMNI*;input] “No time to waste on what?”
“Thank you so much!” Showing a small smiley face on his screen, he swiftly snatched the cord from the human's hands and plugged it into himself, quickly gaining access to his computer.
[RAGATHA*;input] “Caine! What are you doing!? That was so rude! If he wasn’t considering throwing us out then he definitely is now!”
[Input: Corporate this, Corporate that! Don’t get me fired.]
[Output: Desperate, needs us for something? [[Error: lack of Input]], Corporate calls the shots.]
[Conclusion: Impress "Corporate" not this guy.]
[RAGATHA*;input] “uh…”
[JAX!;input] “Sorry to say it Doll, but the bot’s got a point.”
[Activate; program//new\\Download? {Y|N}]
[Output:{Y}!]
[KINGER$%#!;input] “download!? download what!?”
Soon enough a whole bunch of information and input from his newly downloaded search bar flooded through; info on this JCJenson and their very private owners and mysterious donors.
The most information he had gotten about the owners were through separate private news articles talking about lavish donor parties in some luxurious manner.
He had also found what his new job could be, which could span anywhere from catering, cleaning or general hard labor. ‘Finally! An actual job to reference!’
[GANGLE:>;input] “Wha- where… what are you looking at..?”
He then quickly moved to his information on these “worker drones” and what their regular components and systems are meant to do, and generating possible outputs on how to seem more like them.
‘Huh…what an odd power source these drones seem to have, looks a bit unstable too..’
[KINGER$%#!;input] “Unstable!? Unstable how?”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “whats going on caine!?”
After finding everything possibly useful on the maintenance side of things he quickly moved to the job aspect of things looking up the descriptions and training videos of each possible job he would have to work.
[Activate; Download? {Y|N}]
[Output:{Y}!]
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Oh great! What are you downloading now?”
‘None of your business Zooble!’
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Actually it is when its our live’s on the line! You can’t just ignore our opinions just because your petty and upset at us.”
‘No time! Ignore irrelevant input! Focus!!!”
[KINGER$%#!;input] “Caine-”
“Hey! What in the world are you doing with my computer!?” the human gruffly yelled, slamming down the computer to turn it off.
In turn Caine ripped out the cord that gave him connection to said computer, turning to politely respond to this oh so generous human.
“Why learning of course! Thank you again for letting me borrow your computer.
It was incredibly insightful!”
[JAX!;input] “Oh is that what we're calling it now? Borrowing?”
The poor human seemed stunned at this rather fast, slightly unhinged interaction. “I. uh… Learn wha-?”
“NO TIME!” Caine screeched, flapping his arms wildly before quickly turning to the equipment side of the room.
[Activate; program//new\\Scan? {Y|N}]
[Output:{Y}!!]
[POMNI*;input] “Scan? Have you always had the ability to scan things?”
[JAX!;input] “Open your eyes and read pom pom! It says new! So no.”
[RAGATHA*;input] “Do you really need to be so condescending right now!? We're in a stressful situation and none of us need this!”
[JAX!;input] “Whaat? She asked and I answered. If you haven’t noticed, Caine’s a bit preoccupied at the moment, I mean, he himself said he didn’t want any “irrelevant input.”
I’m just being helpful. More so than others.
[ZOOBLE!;input] “No, what your being is a huge pain in the [Pop!]”
“AH HA! There you are!” Caine announced pulling out a small canister, (meant to help the joints move more smoothly.) which managed to jumpscare all who weren't paying attention.
“The perfect temporary fix to make a good first impression with our boss! Right MechanicDave001?” At this the human once again seemed unsettled.
“Wha-How’d you know my name!?” Ignoring the irrelevant Input, Caine went on to fix his joints and then found fuel which was sitting on the other side of the room.
Bouncing his energy back into stable levels, as long as he preserved his energy, which he considered himself an expert on by now, he’d be just fine!
‘Now to look the part…’
[GANGLE:>;input] “Look the part of what…?”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Caine! For the love of everything, just tell us what's happening!”
[RINGMASTER#!;input] “Say, do any of you ungrateful Infuriatingly overstimulating humans have any tips on how to do the following?”
[Output: Butlering, Catering, mining, following the, every beck and call and whims of the rich?]
[JAX!;input] “Oh great, we're dealing with the rich? We're doomed.”
[POMNI*;input] “Hmm…Well I remember, Gangle and Zooble have history in dealing with serving people, food and drink wise…I don’t think I’ll be of much help though…”
[GANGLE:>;input] “I guess…but that was with fast food…Surely it's different right?”
[ZOOBLE!;input] “Any type of catering or leadership knowledge is better than no knowledge. I think it’ll still be useful to us all in the long run.”
[JAX!;input] “Oh sure~ that will Totally help~”
[RAGATHA*;input] “I, I think I could be of the most use.
I grew up in a rich family, remember? I know all the manners and all the ins and outs of how to properly…”behave.”
[Conclusion: Put [RAGATHA*;input], as top PRIORITY over all else input.
Put [GANGLE:>;input], and [ZOOBLE!;input], into consideration.]
[RAGATHA*;input] “Wait, my opinion is a top priority?”
[JAX!;input] “Yeah why those three! What about the rest of us? I have great “input!”
[Conclusion: All other inputs have a [[Error: lack of input]] and are therefore Irrelevant.]
[JAX!;input] “Hey!”
“Hey?” For the first time in the day Caine was the one who was startled away from the conversation running through his “head,” at the friendly reminder that there is another human being in the room.
“Ah, yes?” Caine snapped his attention towards the figure that now heaved a sigh, “look as much as I’d like to dive into all…’ he took a moment to wave his hand in the general area of Caine.
‘Uh, you. We really need to start heading out or else we're going to be late.”
Which only provoked a sense of fear and panic alerts into Caine’s systems, unconsciously making him clutch his head with both hands and making his “eyes” turn into hollowed out circles.
“wha-But I don’t look the part! I can’t show up to a job interview like this!? And you’ll lose your job too!”
Surprisingly the shadowy figure seemed to actually contemplate this for once and actually came up with a good input too.
“Oh, perhaps you're right…I think I have some old butler uniforms in my closet back there..”
Caine immediately took the advice, ‘no time to waste after all…’ quickly running towards the closet, promptly digging out the full uniform and replacing his own old ratty outfit. (That was probably ratty because of the dump…)
Afterwards he immediately made his way towards the entrance of the garage and waited patiently for the overworked human to lead him and his troupe to their new temporary “boss.”
(My art, of what I imaging a Drone Caine looks like :>)
